An open collection of baseball's little-known records and curiosities.

"He would have been among the league leaders in batting average for a majority of the season had he had enough plate appearances." -- 2008 St. Louis Cardinals Media Guide about non-roster invitee Mark Johnson

Friday, November 9, 2007

Lowest OPS by a C in a Season Since 1920

I want to start to looking at some of the worst seasons by position since 1920. The reason I choose that year is because it's considered the start of the "live ball" era, a time in which home runs and hitting for power became an integral part of baseball and offense took off. Since baseball before 1920 was less focused on hitting for power and more on moving runners over, there's not much point in making a list of poor hitting position players from the early 1900's to compare to players today.

With that in mind, here's the lowest seasons by catchers with 350+ plate appearances in a season since 1920. I chose 350 because it's roughly the 3.1 PA/G necessary to qualify for the current league batting title scaled down to roughly 113 games, a number that accommodates the numerous days off full-time catchers require:

Name

Year

Team

PA

AVG

OBP

SLG

OPS

Jerry Grote

1967

NYM

367

.195

.226

.253

.479

Bob Boone

1984

CAL

468

.201

.242

.262

.504

Mickey Grasso

1952

WSH

394

.216

.276

.241

.517

Barry Foote

1975

MON

410

.194

.229

.295

.524

Jim Sundberg

1983

TEX

423

.201

.272

.254

.526

Matt Walbeck

1994

MIN

359

.204

.246

.284

.530

Paul Casanova

1969

WSA

408

.216

.254

.282

.536

Buck Rodgers

1965

CAL

461

.209

.271

.265

.536

Mickey O'Neil

1924

BSN

382

.246

.276

.262

.538

Alan Ashby

1979

HOU

370

.202

.262

.277

.539

Jim Sundberg

1975

TEX

540

.199

.283

.256

.539

Einar Diaz

2002

CLE

351

.206

.258

.284

.542

Sammy White

1957

BOS

370

.215

.267

.276

.543

Jake Gibbs

1968

NYY

460

.213

.270

.277

.547

Al Lopez

1937

BSN

378

.204

.281

.269

.550

Randy Hundley

1972

CHC

387

.218

.261

.294

.555

Ed Herrmann

1976

CAL/HOU

352

.199

.274

.283

.557

Mike Ryan

1966

BOS

400

.214

.271

.287

.558

Joe Azcue

1965

CLE

371

.230

.290

.269

.559

Jake Early

1942

WSH

394

.204

.281

.280

.561

That's the twenty lowest OPS seasons for catchers with 350+ PA. There are seventy-four such seasons with an OPS below .600, nine of which have occurred since 2000: